Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

My husband seems to like banana cake, so I threw this together last night. It turned out well and was quite easy to make. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of banana bread or banana bars, but this was good as well. If you have a few extra brown bananas lying around, make something yummy today!  (Just noticed that I've never made my banana bars for this website.  I will have to fix that very shortly as they are FANTASTIC!)

Ingredients

2 c. sugar

1 c. canola oil

3 eggs

1 T. vanilla

4 overripe bananas, mashed

3 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

1 t. kosher salt

1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 and lightly grease a bundt or 9x13 pan.
2. Place the sugar, oil, and eggs in mixer bowl and beat with paddle until light and lemon colored.
3. Add the vanilla and bananas and mix until just combined.
4. Scrape down bowl and add remaining ingredients. Mix until just combined.
5. Pour into prepared pan and bake in oven until a toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour.
6. Cool cake completely before frosting with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

1/2 c. butter

8 oz cream cheese

2 c. powdered sugar

2 t. vanilla

Directions

1. Beat butter and cream cheese until smooth.
2. Scrape down sides and slowly add the powdered sugar and vanilla.
3. Continue to beat until frosting is fully incorporated and smooth.

Chocolate Crispy Log

Another item out of our freezer meals cookbook. I guess I didn't realize that you could freeze rice crispy bar type food without it getting soggy or something, but guess what, you can! These are actually a bit TOO chocolatey for me, but Brandon loved them. If you love chocolate try this....

Ingredients

10 oz package of marshmallows

1/4 c. butter

1/4 c. peanut butter

5 1/2 c. Rice Krispies cereal

1 1/3 v. semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 c. butterscotch chips

Directions

1. Line a 10x15 jellyroll pan with waxed paper, or silicone baking mat.  Grease paper with butter and set aside.
2. In a pot, melt marshmallows, butter, and peanut butter over medium-low heat until well blended.
3. Stir in cereal until well coated.
4. Spread into prepared pan, pressing it flat using another sheet of buttered waxed paper, or silicone mat.
5. In small pan, melt chocolate chips and butterscotch chips until completely melted.  Spread over cereal mixture
6. Roll up jellyroll style, starting with long side, peeling waxed paper away while rolling.  Place seam side down on serving plate and refrigerate for 1 hour or until set.
7. To freeze, wrap in plastic wrap and then in aluminum foil and freeze.
8. Thaw, slice, serve, and enjoy.

Apple Pie

So, I made this up before baby #3 and threw it in the freezer. I wanted to be able to get a few items baked and up on the blog sometime after having Emery, but knew that having a c-section and a new born baby at home would certainly limit my time and ability to be in the kitchen. This turned out good. I feel that I should try making more pies to put in the freezer for later! The only thing I would change, is that I used fairly sweet apples when I made this because that's what I had in the house. It certainly would have been a little better with something more like a granny smith apple.  Oh, and it doesn't look that pretty because I just had a baby and didn't really care what my dessert looked like...sorry...

Ingredients

1 unbaked 9-in pie shell

1/2 c. sugar (adjust for tartness of apples)

1t. cinnamon

6-8 baking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced

3/4 c. flour

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. butter

Cooking Day Directions

1. Place pie shell in glass or disposable pie plate (for super easy clean-up)
2. For filling, mix 1/2 c. sugar, cinnamon and apples and put in pie shell.
3. Make topping by mixing flour, 1/3 c. sugar, and butter with a fork or pastry blender until crumbly.  Sprinkle over top of apples.
4. Double wrap pie pan with plastic wrap and foil, and freeze.

 Serving Day Directions

1. Pie may be baked while still frozen.
2. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes and then lower the oven temp to 350 degrees for 45 minutes, until apples are tender, juices are bubbly, and the crust lightly browned.
3. Note:  It took much longer for my pie to bake, but I also stuffed as many apples as I could into the pie pan.  Keep baking it until the apples are tender and the juices are nice and bubbly.  If the crust is getting to dark, cover pie with aluminum foil

Cheesecake

Bags are packed to head to the hospital very bright and early tomorrow, so this picture will have to do taken with my iPod. I cut this recipe in half and then made it in my 6 in spring form pan. It turned out great. The only thing was that it was a little too lemony, but I'm pretty sure that had something to do with me trying to halve it and then not really measuring the lemon juice...whoops! The consistency of this cheesecake was great, and I liked that it was a nice and tall cheesecake. Can't wait to make more things in my new spring form pan!

Oh, and no I was not baking the day before giving birth to my third son, this is a make a head and freeze it recipe.  Worked out quite well.  I baked it, cooled it, and even put it in the freezer to get quite solid.  I then removed if from the spring form pan, and wrapped it in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil.  It worked our wonderfully, and took up a lot less space in my freezer without the pan.

Ingredients

1 c. graham cracker crumbs

2 T. brown sugar

1/4 c. melted butter

4 - 8 oz packages cream cheese, room temp.

1 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 T. cornstarch

2 t. vanilla

8 oz sour cream

2 t. grated lemon peel

Directions 

1. Combine the first three ingredients; press into the bottom of 9-in. springform pan and bake at 325° for 6 minutes.  Cool.
2. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add sugar; mix well.
3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. In a small bowl, mix cornstarch, vanilla and lemon juice until smooth.  Add to cream cheese mixture.
5. At this point, mix as little as possible to fold in sour cream.
6. Add lemon peel to filling; pour into crust.
7. Bake at 325° for 45-50 minutes or until center still jiggles. Do not overbake. The center should not be completely set when removed from oven.
8. Cool thoroughly on a wire rack and then chill overnight.

Scotcharoos

Well, I needed another gluten free recipe when someone suggested making just plain old rice crispy bars. Of course, from that, I thought I should make scotcharoos. I haven't made these in forever, and boy are they Delicious! And yes, this bar was eaten while it was still warm...who could resist?

Ingredients

1 c. light corn syrup

1c. sugar

1c. peanut butter

6 c. crispy rice cereal

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 c. butterscotch chips

Directions

1. Place corn syrup and sugar into 3-quart saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until sugar dissolves and mixture begins to boil.  Remove from heat.
2. Stir in peanut butter. Mix well until all peanut butter has been melted.
3. Add cereal. Stir until well coated.
4. Press mixture into 9x13 pan coated with cooking spray. Set aside.
5. Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips together in 1-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly.
6. Spread evenly over cereal mixture.
7. Let stand until firm. Cut into 2 x 1-inch bars when cool.

Boston Cream Cupcakes

I've made these once before, but I had some cake mix and decided that I should make them again. They are super tasty. While these are yellow cake with chocolate frosting, you can make them with whatever cake, frosting, and pudding that you would like. Yummmmm!

Ingredients

1 yellow cake mix prepared as cupcakes

1 box pudding, whatever flavor desired, I used cheesecake

1 tub frosting

Directions

1.  Make cupcakes and allow them to cool to room temperature.
2. Make pudding, perhaps a little thicker than normal, but whatever you like.
3. Using a pastry bag, or syringe (I used one of the kids medicine syringes) squirt pudding into center of cupcakes.  I was able to put about 2-3 teaspoons of pudding into each cupcake.  Make sure to angle the syringe different directions to make sure you can get a lot of pudding into these.
4. Frost with favorite frosting.
5. Allow cupcakes to meld together over night and then enjoy!

Cake Batter Rice Crispy Bars

Okay, so this might be one of my hormonal pregnancy things, but I saw this recipe and HAD to try it. I don't know that it was really any better than normal rice crispy bars, BUT the kids sure enjoyed all the sprinkles and it made a great dessert for our Labor Day picnic.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp. butter

1 (10 oz.) bag of mini-marshmallows

1/3 - 1/2 cup yellow cake mix

6 cups crispy rice cereal

1 (1.75 oz.) container of sprinkles

Directions

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat and add marshmallows. Stir until they melt.
2. Add in cake mix one spoonful at a time and stir until it is all combined.
3. Stir in cereal so it is completely coated with marshmallow mixture.
4. Sprinkle in half of the sprinkles and mix.
5. Press into a baking dish (any size will do) and top with remaining sprinkles.
6. Let sit for about 30 minutes before cutting.